Year: AP 925

Planet: unknown

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

The footsteps that echoed through the tower’s corridor were steady, deliberate, and terrifyingly precise. Each step carried purpose and resolve, yet the sound was mechanical—like the toll of a metronome that refused to falter. If one were to hear them without knowing, they might imagine an aged general of countless campaigns, a veteran molded from decades of blood and death.

And they would be wrong…

For the steps belonged to a youth.

However, in another sense, they would be right. For though still young, Connor bore the weight of a warrior who had lived dozens lives. His eyes had seen too much; his heart had grown harder than tempered steel, and many degrees colder.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

He walked calmly, methodically, through the long and narrow corridor. The darkness was no enemy. It was a companion, a blanket draped across his shoulders, whispering the familiarity of solitude. Within the Erini, darkness was constant—inescapable, inevitable, and Connor embraced it.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Abruptly, Connor reached the end of the hall—and with it, a choice.

He stopped.

Before him, the corridor split. Two paths lay ahead: both cloaked in shadow, both steeped in silence. To the right: obedience, a summons from Taehor, the Primelord himself. To the left: resistance—brief, fleeting rebellion—and the swift blade of consequence.

Among the Erini, defiance always carried a price.

Connor’s jaw tightened.

The choice was an illusion.

The decision was already made.

Without hesitation, he turned right.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

The hall stretched before him, ending in a double door flanked by two cloaked figures. Shadows clung to them, hiding their forms. To another, they would have been unseen—phantoms in the void of shadows. But Connor’s Shade Sight cut through darkness. Threads of Vigor laced from his body, crawling across walls, floor, ceiling, revealing every line and etching. The hidden patterns in the stone, the intricate carvings in the walls, the oppressive weight of the vaulted ceiling—all were laid bare. And the two waiting figures, twin sentinels, were clearer to him than daylight itself.

The Sisters. High Guards. Dangerous. Treacherous. Twins.

Connor hated them.

Had he been the sort to express his feelings, he might have declared his general dislike for anyone who was not himself. But even in a world steeped in distrust, he had long reserved a special loathing for the two women who now invaded his presence.

Their cloaks were a lifeless black, each concealing a blood-red mask without mouths—only hollow eye-slits and faint nasal indentations, just enough to hint at human faces beneath. Yet when they spoke, their voices cut through the air, sharp and cold, as though no mask existed at all.

“He’s waiting for you,” murmured the one on the left.

“It is unwise to keep Taehor waiting,” finished the one on the right.

How I despise them, Connor thought—not for what they said, but for what they were: arrogance wrapped in flesh, superiority etched into every syllable, and that insufferable air of control. His gaze burned into theirs, piercing and unyielding. Still, they did not flinch. Their eyes, hidden behind red masks, stared back—unmoved, unshaken, unbreakable, like stone statues.

Connor said nothing. He did not need to. Words were wasted on insects. He would squash them eventually. Instead, he placed his hand on the iron-bound doors and pushed. The wood groaned. A breath of stale air poured out.

The pale light from the corridor bled into the chamber, yet it revealed nothing—for the room was swallowed whole by shadow. And still, through Shade Sight, Connor saw everything.

The chamber stretched impossibly high, vast in breadth and depth, like a tomb built for kings who were long forgotten. Gold filigree traced the archways, and silver inlays crept across the walls like veins of captured moonlight. A massive fireplace yawned at the far end of the room—cold, dead, untouched.

Beauty. Wealth. Grandeur.

All remnants of a world long since conquered.

But to Connor—and to the Erini—none of it mattered.

All that mattered was obedience.

At the heart of the chamber, a single table extended twenty feet in length. Empty, save for one man—Primelord Taehor.

He sat cloaked in the darkness, yet his presence filled the chamber like a crushing weight. His aura was silence incarnate: the quiet of inevitability. It pressed down upon the room like the ocean upon the deep, vast and unrelenting, too heavy to resist and too suffocating to question.

“I am glad you came… Sit.”

The voice was devoid of emotion—no joy, no anger. It was pure command, stripped of anything human. Words that did not request, but compelled.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Connor stepped forward. His boots struck the marble floor. Each impact echoed like a war drum. Calm. Methodical. Mechanical. He walked the long distance of the table and sat opposite the Primelord.

Silence…

Pure silence…

Pure, awkward silence…

In a blink, Connor moved.

A ripple of crimson light flared as Connor Shade Stepped, his form vanishing from the chair and reappearing atop the long, polished table. His halberd erupted into existence, a streak of scarlet flame and black steel, swinging downward with impossible speed—an executioner’s stroke meant to cleave the Primelord in half.

But before the blade could fall, the darkness itself bloomed! Thousands of obsidian swords, jagged and merciless, manifested from nothing, lancing through Connor’s body from every conceivable direction. Blades pierced flesh, tore muscle, shattered bone. His blood spilled like a flooded river across the table, his corpse twitching as the weapons suspended him like a broken marionette.

Then silence.

The swords evaporated.

The body vanished.

Connor sat still at the far end of the table. He had never moved.

It was a scenario. Nothing more.

In his mind, the warrior youth ran them again and again. Dozens. Hundreds. Each ended the same way—with his death.

And yet…

Connor’s hand shot up, releasing a sphere of sinister black flames that tore across the length of the table. At the same instant, he ripped into the Veil!

The world froze.

Monochrome silence. The air thickened, clinging to his body like water, and sound died. Color inverted. Only the threads of Vigor remained—millions of luminous strands weaving through the chamber like rushing currents of power. They poured endlessly into Taehor, into Connor, into the very stonework of the room.

Here, in the Veil, he could not breathe. One lungful of air—that was all. Already his chest burned as he pushed forward through the resistance, his movements sluggish as though running through liquid steel.

He circled behind Taehor, unseen, unstoppable. His hands gripped as if holding an imaginary weapon, as threads of Vigor bent to his command. They poured into him, weaved between his fingers, summoning his colossal Kidokane to life. Monstrous in size, its dark, gleaming edge dwarfed the boy who wielded it. Even in this frozen world, its presence was suffocating, divine, yet terrifying.

Connor raised it slowly, every motion a war against the weight of the Veil. He timed it, perfectly. At the very instant his blade would strike, he tore free—ripping himself out of the monochrome realm and into the physical world.

The time snapped forward.

The black fireball roared across the table.

The halberd descended toward Taehor’s exposed neck.

Two deaths. One instant. Unavoidable.

And yet—

The darkness bloomed again.

A forest of swords erupted from nothing, a storm of obsidian steel exploding from the shadows. They shredded Connor from behind, impaled him from every angle. At the same time, a shield of blades blossomed in front of Taehor, catching the black fireball and dispersing it into harmless, light-less embers. As quickly as they appeared, the swords vanished, and Connor’s body fell in ruin, torn and lifeless to the floor at the Primelord’s feet.

Pure, awkward, dangerous silence…

Again, Connor sat motionless at the end of the table. Not a muscle stirred. His heartbeat steady. His gaze did not waver. Another scenario. Another death…

At last, the voice came.

“Executioner Connor.”

The words carried the impression of finality and absolution.

“I have a mission for you,” Taehor continued. “An objective. Will you obey?”

It was a simple question, and for Connor, the answer was even simpler.

“Yes.”

He did not need to know the details. He never did. For the Erini, obedience did not require knowledge. It did not require reason. It did not even require thought. Orders came, and orders were obeyed.

“Good.”

Taehor’s voice was cold as a black hole. “It has come to my attention that Kennel has sent some of their abominations to the Atlana system. Though the chances are slim, if they succeed in subduing our champions there, it could ignite rebellion among the inhabitants. I am dispatching a Dreadnought to the planet’s southern pole to deliver reinforcements. You will lead the counteroffensive, secure the territory, and when it is done… you will personally Judicate the rebellious elements.”

Connor said nothing. He had already agreed. His silent nod was enough. Rising, he turned to leave.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

But just before he reached the door—

“Connor.”

The voice froze him in place.

“Why do you not wear your hood in my presence?”

Connor stopped cold. He had not realized. Since leaving the rooftop, since walking the halls, since facing the twins outside… his hood had been down. His face exposed. Not once had he remembered lowering it. Not once had he thought to cover himself.

His hand reached back, fingers curling toward the fabric. Slowly, deliberately, he began to pull the hood over his head.

And then—

Vigor shifted.

From the shadow of the hood, blades erupted—jagged, black fangs bursting outward like the maw of a great beast. They shot toward his skull, inches from his flesh, poised to impale him where he stood.

And then, just as suddenly, they vanished, retracting into the darkness.

Connor froze, his breath still in his chest. Neither he nor Taehor spoke. None was needed. The message was clear. Even here, even now—the darkness belonged to Taehor.

Connor adjusted the hood carefully, pulling it over his head at last. Then, with deliberate calm, he turned back to the door.

The double doors groaned open, spilling him back into the corridor’s dark embrace. The twins still stood on either side like granite sculptures. They did not move. They did not speak.

As the doors shut behind him, Connor walked. His thoughts burned.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

All darkness belonged to Taehor. Even the shadows of Connor’s own vestments. Even the hood upon his head. The Erini were born of darkness. And in the darkness, Taehor’s dominion was absolute.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Behind the mask of indifference, fury began to churn. Anger, pure and unadulterated, boiled beneath the surface. He did not know where it came from. Or perhaps he did.

It wasn’t Taehor.

It wasn’t the twins.

The way of the Erini was simple: the strongest lead, the strongest survived. Taehor was simply the strongest. Perhaps that was what angered him most. He wasn’t the strongest.

Not yet…

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Each step down the corridor echoed his presence and fostered his rage. The anger rushed through Connor, but he kept it contained, bottled inside his chest. He wanted desperately—desperately—to let it out. To destroy something. To kill… something.

He turned a corner.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Another hallway. Another stretch of black stone. Another cage for his thoughts. He had an order to fulfill. He had to depart, prepare, get ready. And yet still the anger gnawed at him.

Then—he froze.

A small smile crept across his lips.

At the far end of the corridor, a lone figure stood in the darkness, waiting. No words at first, but his intent radiated from him. Why else would he be there, blocking the hallway?

A voice called out from the dark.

“High Executioner Connor of the Blood Tribe, Champion of Ceymon—” the voice cracked, then steadied, “—I, Aiden, Champion of Admirer, challenge you to a duel for the Right of Position!”

Connor’s eyes narrowed. Aiden. He had heard the name. He was a rising prodigy clawing his way up from the lower ranks of the tribe. Ambitious. Hungry. And now, bold enough to challenge him?

Connor’s smile deepened.

Thank you, the High Executioner thought to himself. Connor did not know who he was thanking, nor did he care. But he was grateful all the same.  

The dark figure extended his hand. A green glow flared—not light, but an aura—and from it materialized his Kidokane. Like all Kidokanes, it was massive, a weapon far larger than any man should wield. Sleek jade gleamed along its edge, black vine-like etchings winding across its blade as though it were a living thing. Power radiated from it, dangerous and untamed. No two Kidokanes were the same. Each was a mystery. That was what made them deadly—and exciting.

Connor did not salute. He did not acknowledge his would-be rival. He simply stood, calm and silent.

Aiden vanished in an obvious Shade Step.

In an instant, he appeared behind Connor, jade Kidokane already bearing down!

But Connor was ready.

A flare of dark red light scratched the darkness as Connor’s own Kidokane erupted into existence. The clash was silent, instantaneous—like a thunderclap with no sound. Two streaks of power collided in a blur of otherworldly steel and unseen Vigor.

Silence.

Pure silence.

Pure, torturous silence.

Moments later, Connor resumed walking…

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

His expression was blank. His anger cooled. His breathing calm. Behind him, darkness reclaimed the hallway, covering a scene of horror. What had been Aiden was now only gore and remnants, scattered and unrecognizable across the black stone.

There would be no mourning. No report. No consequences. No memory of Aiden, Champion of Admirer.

This was the way of the Erini. Those who could not survive did not deserve to be remembered.

Connor, however, had an appointment to keep and an order to obey.

He would be remembered. 

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.